'The Body as Metaphor' by John Burnside

From John's 2007 collection, 'Gift Songs'. 

 I am not sure that recovering Catholics ever believe that the body is more than an obstruction to the passage and welfare of the soul: it is good, if salutary, to be reminded of the imperial power of flesh and blood, with its own agenda, demands and destiny.

THE BODY AS METAPHOR

 We only imagine it ends
like childhood, or rain:
fever, the purl in the bone, the amended
lustre of the self, all shell and glitter,

 as if it had long been decided
that flesh is a journey,
something immense in the blood,
like a summer of locusts,

 or something not quite visible, but quick
as birchseed or the threading of a wire
through sleep and rapture, gathering the hand
that reaches from the light, to close or open.


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